The favored brands around here are a Trace inverter with Trojan batteries.

We are completely off the grid running on solar. We have four 150 watt 24v panels going through a charge controller that feeds a bank of 16 six volt batteries wired in series & parallel that feed a Trace DR2415 inverter. We used 00 welding cable to make the battery interconnects with.

The system runs the lights, multiple computers, large color TV, washing machine, miscellaneous power tools and other small electrical appliances. (We can run the hot air popcorn popper if everything else is shut off.) All the lights are flourescent and we have switches wired to some of the outlets so we can shut the power entirely off without having to unplug the electronics. We are planning on adding a wind generator so we can run a refrigerator on the system.